Geography

Meadow Park  4  Hampton  2

Friendly

Admission / Programme – No / No

My gaffer isn’t known for his sense of geography.

“I’m in Manchester on Thursday, pop over and see me in the morning, it’s not far from you is it?”

Mileage wise no, it’s not that far, but time wise first thing in a morning it’s an absolute crock of the proverbial. The first forty miles can take an hour, the remaining ten miles even longer, it’s an absolute pleasure, but then again, did I have much of a choice?

No, of course I didn’t, but as the day drew ever closer, I’d begun to hatch myself a wee little plan. You see, the boss was driving back to Scotland the same day and had made it clear he needed to be away by 2pm, myself on the other hand, well I’d worked out that I would have more than enough time to do the M6 and M5 run South, to the Southern outskirts of Bromsgrove.

I can’t say as I’ve been to Bromsgrove very often, not football wise that is, I’ve only been a couple of times to watch Rovers play. At one point going back three bosses ago, he was stationed in the town so I had to make the odd trip to to an estate agency branch, but apart from that, it’s a place I’m not altogether familiar with.

The Midland Football League called it’s constitutions quite early this Summer, and one name that dropped onto the list was that of Meadow Park, a club cased in Stoke Prior, who last season had been plying their craft in the lower divisions of the Hellenic League, the divisions that clubs reputedly get conned into joining only to find out that officially you cannot get promoted out of as they don’t form part of the Regional Feeder Leagues!

I can’t say why Meadow Park have chosen to make the move, maybe it is the promotion issue, although I would suspect it’s more a case of playing in a league that suits them geographically, as they would have been an outpost in the Hellenic. But anyway, they’ve made the move, and after broaching the subject with Steve, we both decided to make the trip.

The motorways did indeed behave themselves, and just as I was traversing the ring road and roundabouts that punctuate the edges of Bromsgrove, Steve called to tell me that he’d parked up and had found the pub we’d planned on visiting. It seems Stoke Prior, was welcoming us accordingly.

Now, word of warning if you are going by car, if you don’t do your homework I can 100% guarantee that you will miss the entrance to the ground. For a start, you will never think to turn into some factory gates, but it seems you do, because to the very side of the said gates, hidden from view as you are passing, is a small entrance that takes you up a slope and into the car park. Yes, I did miss it, and I won’t be the last!

An hour before kick off, players were arriving, kids were training on the vast expanses, and a pitch was marked out with corner flags in place, all looked ok so off to the pub we went, a short walk away crossing over the canal.

We arrived back at the ground just as the players were coming out onto the pitch, and that gave us a little bit of time to survey the scenery. A grass bank flanks two sides of the pitch, with dugouts currently being built on the factory side. The dressing rooms sit behind the goal, and to be fair we never ventured into the building to see if any refreshment options might be available, so if they do, apologies Meadow Park.

As for the game, well it’s was a strange one as the higher ranking visitors went into a two goal lead and for all intents and purposes you could see nothing other than an away victory, but fair play to the hosts who fought back to not only regain parity, they also scored twice in the second period to seal what on paper looked like a fairly straightforward victory. It wasn’t that straightforward though, they had to re-group at 2-0 to turn the game around.

So that was it, and it was only when I turned the sat nav on that I remembered about the carnage that is the roadworks Northbound on the A38 at Lichfield, which in turn culminated in taking the M42 all the way up to the M1 at East Midlands Airport. It probably didn’t add that much more on time wise than had I gone the normal route without the roadworks, it just felt like it was longer.

It’ll be interesting to see how Meadow Park perform this season, and it will also be interesting to see when the gaffer resumes our meetings North of the border, only it seems a long while since I was at Stirling Albion…..and with respect, it beats a morning in Manchester!